My wife told me one yesterday.
She's a university professor, and periodically has to take part in Faculty Senate, where the provost hears concerns among the faculty and then makes rules accordingly. In this particular session they were discussing summer classes.

Professors are generally paid based on working nine months. During the summer they can do whatever they like for extra income, and will sometimes teach a summer course. This had been set up to pay them according to a percentage of their base pay, which meant some pretty serious variation across the spectrum. The provost decided that this was unfair, and set additional limits- namely that the professor would not be paid less than $3000 for a class or more than $7000, so that the lower paid faculty wouldn't be so badly screwed.

The upper limit only really affects maybe 25 professors faculty wide, but all of them are in the School of Business. When the provost made his announcement about limits one of them stood and went on a long rant about why these limits shouldn't be in place and that they were using skewed data and rambled on for a bit because he would be impacted by the upper limit. He finished by declaring that this was as bad an idea as "the S word."

The provost looked at him blankly. "The S word? What's that?"

The business professor drew himself up and shouted "Socialism!" as though it were the vilest curse he could throw.

Apparently the business professor didn't understand that when everyone in the room cracked up they weren't laughing with him...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 19:06, 7 replies)

He had a point though.
Imposing an upper limit on academics' salaries is exactly the kind of anti-intellectual communist oppression Mao and Stalin indulged in.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:06, closed)

The limit was not on his salary
but rather how much he would get paid for that one class. He stood to be making about four times what some of the assistant professors were making for the same effort, so the provost put a cap on that. His annual salary is unaffected.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:57, closed)

Alternatively...
They could have pointed out that he wouldn't have been affected at all if he had actually got some research proposals funded to provide his summer salary.
(Dr. Scambolic, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:24, closed)

Work is a curse suffered by the lesser castes.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:45, closed)

I don't think that the provost bothered.
From what my wife said, he basically rolled his eyes and moved on to something else and let someone else explain to the guy why no one took him seriously.

Or not, I suppose.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Mar 2011, 20:58, closed)

I don't understand why they were paid a percentage of their base pay. Surely if you teach a summer class you'd be putting in X amount of hours (including class preparation, marking, face time with students etc), therefore you'd get paid for those hours. The amount could be adjusted according to seniority/difficulty, but basically the professor is offering a particular product which attracts a particular price.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 5:18, closed)

The time put in by a professor is actually pretty significant.
If I were to break down my wife's time into hourly wage, she'd only be making about $15 to $20 per hour. She spends godawful amounts of time in meetings, with students, grading, preparing lectures and so on. I would guess that she typically puts in about 60 to 80 hours per week.

They have to pay a flat amount for a class taught over the summer. As the guys making $150K and up would find it insulting to work for the same amount as the guys making only about $40K, they base it on percentage of annual salary. To an academic these sorts of politics are IMPORTANT, as they deserve some RESPECT for their position.

Me, I think they should pay a flat fee to all of them, prides be damned. But hey, what do I know? I'm just an engineer.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 4 Mar 2011, 13:49, closed)